Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, September 19, 1993                   TAG: 9309170159
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-6   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WYTHEVILLE                                LENGTH: Medium

TEACHER WAS RIGHT ABOUT MUSICAL FUTURE

She saw a future in music for Stevens that even Stevens had not foreseen when she graduated from high school in Pulaski.

Stevens was planning to major in sociology at Lenoir-Rhyne College in Hickory, N.C., where her two brothers already were in school. She had taken piano lessons off and on, but had not thought of music as a career.

"I had really decided to go into social work," she said. "It was right before I went to Lenoir-Rhyne. I had a music teacher who kept saying I was going to major in music."

That teacher, Mary Dunlap, clearly had seen the musical spark that has followed Stevens ever since. Stevens tried her hand at playing the organ, and things were never the same again.

She graduated as a music major and earned a master's in sacred music from Wittenberg University. She is a certified Associate in Ministry in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, her certification being in music.

One week ago, she was installed as director of music and lay associate in ministry at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Wytheville. The pastor for the service was her father, the Rev. Auburn Bowers of Pulaski.

Stevens was in high school in 1969 when her family moved from Knoxville, Tenn., to Pulaski. Now she lives in Pulaski with her husband, Jim.

She was organist and choir director for three years at Luther Memorial Lutheran Church in Blacksburg, an organist at St. Mark Lutheran Church in Charlottesville for eight years until her husband's job brought her back to Pulaski, an organist at Trinity Lutheran Church in Pulaski and, most recently, at Christ Episcopal Church in Pulaski.

She also gives private lessons in piano, organ and voice.

Stevens was looking for a job in another Lutheran church about the time Mary Kinkel, who had been commuting from Independence to Wytheville for years as organist at Holy Trinity, was retiring.

She got the job. It is a 30-minute commute from Pulaski to Wytheville for Wednesday practice and Sunday services, but "it's not that bad," Stevens said. "I'm really enjoying the people down there."